English Society 1660-1832

"It is not an easy read, that’s true, but it is a terrific book. Clark argues that the British state, in the 18th century, was a confessional and an aristocratic state. It was very strongly Anglican and very strongly aristocratic. That aristocratic influence continued long after, even, the Reform Act of 1832. It wasn’t progressive. It wasn’t interested in the ideas of John Locke. Clark came up with the idea that Locke wasn’t influential at a time when people thought he was. There’s now quite a lot of digital humanities, data-driven analysis of 18th century texts which supports Jonathan Clark’s thesis that Locke’s ideas were not particularly influential. But it was inspirational 30 years ago. “Clark came up with the idea that Locke wasn’t influential at a time when people thought he was.” I’ve tried to stay off books about Scottish or Irish Jacobitism specifically to be able to look at them more generally. Clark does have a bit about Jacobitism in the book, but by presenting this version of society, the fundamental issue he shows is that Jacobitism was normative. The idea that British society was progressive and the Jacobites were wild men from the hills who were just off their nut is completely blown apart by Clark’s book. He shows that what it’s fundamentally about is who controls an aristocratic and church-dominated state. It is not about fighting progressive modernity from the backwoods: it is about which party (and he argues—as many others have since argued—that the Tories will remain largely Jacobite up to the 1760s) is going to control that state. That’s fundamentally a political question. It makes Jacobitism far more serious. And it takes you well out of that kind of slough, which we still live with, which is that the Jacobites are dirty and hairy and that the forces facing them are progressive and interested in democracy. Absolutely, that’s one of the reasons Jonathan Clark’s book was very polemical. He goes against the historical orthodoxy and accuses that orthodoxy of presentism, of saying, ‘We got here because we were always going to get here because this is the way people thought in the 18th century, and that’s how progress has happened.’ Whig history, in other words: the idea that there is a development from the idea of rights, and property rights, to the ability of ordinary people to take on their rulers, to a modern democracy. He is saying that’s actually just a comforting story that democracy is telling itself. That’s right. There are other dimensions to Jacobitism, but basically it is about contestation of who controls the structures of what is a fairly conservative, aristocratic, confessional or religious state, with extensive monarchical power."